Jamaican man who murdered British teenager cannot by deported because he is gay, judge rules

Wednesday 16 April 2014 14:24 BST

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An illegal immigrant who murdered a British teenager less than a year after he arrived in the UK cannot be deported - because he is gay - a senior judge has ruled.

The 29-year-old killer, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been released from jail, after Lord Justice Maurice Kay said that sending him back to Jamaica would violate his human rights as a homosexual.

The murderer - referred to only as JR - arrived in the UK in December 2000 when he was 15 and was "party to the murder of another teenage boy" less than a year later in 2001, the judge said.

He was sentenced to detention at Her Majesty's pleasure in September 2002, and was freed from prison in June 2012.

Ever since his release, Home Secretary Theresa May has been battling to have him sent home.

JR successfully appealed the Home Secretary's decision to deport him to the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT), and the Upper Tribunal (UT) refused a challenge to that decision brought by Mrs May last year.

Now Lord Justice Kay, sitting with Lord Justice Lewison and Sir Stanley Burnton at the Court of Appeal, has blocked the Government's final attempt to have JR deported.

The judge said JR spent 11 and a half years in custody before first declaring himself gay in April 2012.

The First-Tier Tribunal accepted he was homosexual and that he would be at risk of 'inhuman or degrading treatment' if returned to Jamaica.

The Upper Tribunal later refused Mrs May's appeal, after hearing JR's mother give evidence that she "knew all along" that her son was gay.

His "late disclosure" of his sexuality was said to have been "prompted by societal attitudes, particularly that of Jamaicans towards gays".

At the Appeal Court Catherine Rowlands, for Mrs May, argued that the JR's eleventh hour assertion of homosexuality should have been rejected "on credibility grounds" as "he had made no mention of it" during a previous asylum application.

The barrister argued that "the claim of homosexuality was contrived and brought as a last resort to avoid deportation."

Dismissing the appeal, however, Lord Justice Kay said the FTT had plainly found JR's mother "an impressive witness".

"I consider that the UT was correct to find no error of law in the FTT's treatment of the issue of homosexuality".

Mrs May accepted that, if JR was genuinely gay, he could not be deported and the UT had also found that he "no longer constitutes a significant danger to the community of the UK."

"It follows from what I have said that the Secretary of State's appeal must fail," said the judge.

He concluded: "I should add, however, that this case turns on its specific and quite unusual facts. It should not be seen as providing more general succour to others convicted of grave crimes."